Asher B. Durand: To Begin Again

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September 5 - December 10, 2017

Asher B. Durand: To Begin Again focused on the early career of this leading artist of the Hudson River School. The centerpiece of the exhibition was Durand’s first commissioned landscape painting, Boonton Falls, New Jersey, which the museum had recently acquired. Durand, who worked primarily as an engraver and an occasional portraitist in the 1820s, pursued landscape painting in earnest in the 1830s, gaining prominence by midcentury. This exhibition investigated Durand’s transition from engraver to landscape painter in light of this rediscovered—and newly cleaned—picture, addressing its critical reception, the circumstances of the commission, and the rising cultural relevance of landscape painting in nineteenth-century America. The exhibition also included more than two dozen paintings and engravings by Durand from both public and private collections.

 

Organized by the Palmer Museum of Art.